Walkin' The Dog......

It's 102 degrees today in Springfield, MO. But early this morning when Cameron (6 years old) and I walked Chunk (8 1/2 year old black lab), it wasn't so bad. Until we met another walker with a dog. Big brown dog. Big white teeth. Then, things heated up. Apparently, big brown had awakened on the wrong side of the water bowl.

Dog threatenings ensued on each side---barks and snarls and lunges. Both of us adult humans held onto the canines and got an upper body work out. It was kind of like watching prizefighters at the weigh-in. Stony faces, glistening muscles, entourages arrayed behind them. Then one says something taken as a "dis" and it's barks, snarls and lunges---with trainers and bodyguards trying to separate them.

That scene is one of conflict. The trainers-and-leashes drill is conflict management. Superficial resolution is accomplished by distance. Walking away.

Conflict is just a part of the human (and obviously, canine) condition. It comes out of territory, space, personality, affront, relationship, and a hundred other things. It happens with others...and it happens within us. I think a phrase of choice today is "I am just so conflicted!"

We have conflicts around everything from broken pledges to restaurant preference, from choosing wall colors to child discipline methods, from how the toothpaste gets squeezed to nuclear proliferation.

I agree with the author, David Augsberger, who wrote a book on the subject many years ago, called "Caring Enough To Confront." He simply says conflict happens.....and it's neutral.
How we respond is what makes the difference. He proceeds to outline 5 ways of dealing with it:

1. I'll get you. That was the dog-deal this morning. I'm right, you're wrong....I'm gonna get you. Over the years I have refined this method to an art form. Unfortunately, it never works.

2. I'll give in. You're always right, I'm always wrong...so I'll just curl up over here in the corner and eat some worms. The person who always accedes or "gives in" in the relationship, in the long-term doesn't help it.

3. I'll get out. Walking away, over time, doesn't help. Though to prevent too much intensity sometimes it helps in the short-term. A few years ago at a conference in Cartagena, Colombia a man told me about an old couple, who were being honored for being married 75 years. The M.C. asked the old man, a southern farmer, how the marriage had lasted that long. He replied, "Me and Maw had this here 'greement that it things ever go too hot and mean, ah'd jest go out and set on the porch til we both cooled down. Then, ah'd go on in and work it on out. Ah guess, this marriage has lasted this long 'cause of all that great outdoor livin'!"

4. I'll go part way. The fine art of compromise is the stuff of good relationships, but often takes time to figure out how to get there.

5. Affirm the person... confront the issue. The best way...the most structural/foundational manner to move forward. Jesus did it in John 8 with the adulteress woman whom the religious types were ready to stone, when he sent them on their way then said to her, "Who condemns you?" She replied, "No one." He said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more." Or perhaps to paraphrase, "You are a great lady and that's not what great ladies do!"

So, I'll expect conflict, but try to keep from creating it.

I guess, if I don't get it right....we're back to a dog's life.